Monday, June 3, 2013

Mortyr - Rise of the Tyrant

Mortyr’s “Rise of the Tyrant” is the third album that will
be released by Stormspell Records this summer featuring Rocka Rollas mainman
Ced. This project has fewer details surrounding it, so I’m not sure if it is
written entirely by Ced or not, but nevertheless, he proved to be quite
productive this year. Mortyr is considerably different from those other
projects, however. They are a thrash band, and an extremely heavy one too. “Rise of the
Tyrant” is clearly a nod to the mad thrashing brutality of bands like Dark
Angel, early Kreator, and Sadus. If you’ve come for vicious sounding thrash,
this is the record for you.

The opening title track is one of the few tracks on this
record that strays in a bit of a different direction. There is a very clear
melody that runs rampant throughout the track, and that is a feature that is
not prominent on many other songs. For the most part, Mortyr provide riff after
riff of high-speed thrash. While there are many standard, simple thrash riffs,
there are also much more complex passages, not unlike something you might find
on “Darkness Descends”. In fact, the track “Dark Angel” appears to be pure
worship of the aforementioned band as it relies only on its intensity and riff
quality. As you might have already guessed, the vocals on “Rise of the Tyrant”
are the kind that will tear various limbs off of your body from their sheer
tenacity. They perfectly compliment the style, though they unfortunately tend
to make the songs one-dimensional. To differentiate themselves from other
death/thrash bands, Mortyr tends to utilize plenty of more technical guitar
solos. This is not a surprise, as Ced has proven in his other bands that he is
a more than capable guitarist, and that influence definitely gives Mortyr a
different feel to their music. “Merciless Game”, for example, features a
dueling lead guitar harmony that would be more at place in a power metal song
than a thrash one. My sole criticism of this record is that not all of the
songs are particularly memorable. There are certainly moments of brilliance in
many of these tracks, but unlike on “Pleasure to Kill”, I cannot instantly
recall every single one of them. Nonetheless, if you want something that
thrashes intently, Mortyr is a solid choice.